LOCATION: Ossus; Beyond Academy Grounds
OBJECTIVE: Light A Cigar, It's All You Have Left
Things were falling apart. That much was clear. Things had gone to chite, and it didn't look like things were getting any better. It wasn't that, however, that sent shivers down her spine. No, it wasn't the looming presence of doom or the way Chaos reminded her of the chaos of her own household. There wasn't any fear in the sight of burning fires or boiling blood. This was a horror of another kind, one previously unknown, but only previously forgotten. As much as she tried to not care about the growing darkness, the lack of light, she could not deny what she felt inside. After three months of living with a makeshift family you start to wonder if your blood has shifted. If your DNA matches theirs like it was always meant to. The Zorren wasn't Drapeam Nyx anymore, if she had ever really been. These days she was Nyxius Stone. Nyxius Raaf. Nyxius Vael, Nxius Koveck, Nyxius the Glowstick-Wielding Jedi. She was everything this crooked family had made her to be. And now they were gone. What had been a beautiful roof over her head had collapsed, falling on top of her, leaving her crushed and breathless while the rest made their escape. When she awoke their blood, the liquid of the fallen, was surrounding her, burning even more than the building was. It had collapsed on her. By the time those heavy eyelids reopened hell had taken her in it's jaws, tore into her, releasing it's venom upon her already-poisoned veins. She was left a broken thing, abandoned by reason, filled with a despicable rage.
Yellow eyes had never seemed so fitting.
People might have thought that those were the reasons she had fled in the night. They thought that she couldn't take the pressure of a few dark deeds, that she had been destroyed by a few moments in Chaos, that her soul was as fragile as their pride. But they hadn't bothered to stop her or talk to her. All they had done was assume. Assume assume presume infer assume assume assume. The not-Jedi was a work of art- not a scattered stonework. Her body was built up like a tower, standing over six feet tall, strong in every sense of the word. Then why? Why was she standing alone in the midst of a nightmare?... Oh, darling, have you never loved?... 'Nyxius Staffealk' had found a place to live. A few weeks of persuading had let her guard slip a little- falling to floor just as quickly as her suitcases had. Speaking to newly-found-kin brought her the first moments of peace she had forgotten existed. And time has passed. Long sleepless nights shifted to quiet dreams about those who took her in, the ones who held her up when most would have let her down. They were a family of sorts. Suddenly a hundred of her worst enemies had cast their blades and replaced them with open arms, accepting a woman with a mixed past, taking her in because no one else would. Days where glares were sent across cafeteria halls moved on to casual conversations about the state of the galaxy. Things shifted. Hearts rearranged. This was her new family. A grouping of bathrobe-wearing, glow-stick-carrying, space-wizard space schuttas. That was taking it easy on them. Because 'Nyxius' in all her nonexistent glory hated force users and therefore she hated herself- but she had known that for years.
Her family felt different.
Or at least they pretended to. They seemed like they had a feeling for her that differed from the words her old friends spat at her. Not once had [member="Gherron Vael"] struck at her like her younger cousin once had. Despite her swearing, her yelling, her butchering of the Corellian tongue, [member="Corvus Raaf"] had never seemed to look upon with anything other than a kind patience. When she had accidentally stepped on the plants of the Ossus gardens... Talia Koveck had smiled softly, accepted her apology, and taught her all about the history of the world. "It's a beaten up world. It's been through hell and back... I can see why you fit in here so well." Even when the Zorren had gone into shock mid-treatment, Dr. Lydia Stone held her hand, kissed her forehead, and kept her alive. "You aren't ready to go yet, Nyx. Stay." And the others. There were others who had come to speak to her, to learn from her, to teach her. Yet the absence of a few had been enough to strike her down. A mighty Imperial Bastard, a Boomshot queen, was reduced to a sniveling child because the only family that she cared for had been torn in half. She was forty years old. In those forty years she had known one mother and a dozen step-mothers. She had known one father, but no dad. Once she knew a grandmother. Now all she knew was ashes. At some point she had three siblings. Each was buried in the ground, still with their baby teeth attached, tiny, frail hands reaching for a mother's bosom. The woman in question was laid to rest but a few feet away. They were so close... 'Nyxius' did not have the luxury. She had known nearly a century's worth of bosses. Overlords, caretakers, dictators. A man had once called her his beloved.
And she had left without a word.
How had it come to this? Twenty-five years in she had learned that love was stupid. It was painful and hard. Like an ornate mirror ready to shatter at a moment's notice and you never knew when that would be but you knew it was coming. You knew it was going to break. You were going to get cut. And Drapeam Nyx, the woman who went by her last name because her father had told her she was not worthy of it, Drapeam Nyx had learned to love a household again. The good old Jedi Order had always been filled with her sisters, her brothers, her cousins, aunts, uncles. They were all her relatives. Every one was a sibling she had lost at birth. They were the ones who never reached six feet below. No, they had risen, they had run, far before the likes of Life could clutch it's claws into them to deliver them to death. Now how many had found themselves being outrun? How many had been cast into the pits of hell for pathetic reasons?... To many! So many... Stone... Raaf... Koveck... Everyone. What a horrid thing, life, fate. Truly one of the worst of the natural-born bastards. Some people had returned. Somehow they had managed to escape. She was one of them. But billions more hadn't been that lucky. They were still trapped in a world without hope. A world where the only light came from the darkness itself.
The last of the sun-rays shone upon the earth, casting a light where only shadow felt appropriate.
A shaking hand raised. Slowly. Unsteadily. It brought a thick cigar to rosy lips, sliding in between, bumping up against sharp, pearly white teeth. Oh, how the feeling made her reminiscence... She fought back a hard cough. She tried not to let the first tear fall. If one fell... then a hundred more would. Without a word the woman lifted her other arm, gathering heat in her palm, ignoring the recent insanity of the force. She didn't care. It didn't matter. That wondrous lighter of hers was buried in feet of scalding hot life-liquid. Lost in the pits of hell- just like her father. Ironic as it was... the tool had, in fact, been a gift from him. Maybe it's better, she thought, that I do this myself now. Reminders of her blood-kin made her shudder. And as the first night lights in the distance turned on she cringed. She growled as the first sob left her trembling body, she scowled as the first droplet fell, she clenched her fists as her heart started to pound. Drapeam Nyx, Nyxius Staffealk, the Boomshot queen, decided, in that moment, that living in the universe was the worst mistake she had ever made. Existing was overrated. So... for those few seconds she opted out on that. Her eyes closed. The movements, the rising, the falling, of her chest slowed. Her lips shook less with every inhale of deadly smoke, with every draft of chemicals flowing to her lungs, breaking them like the house had broken the rest of her. And this woman knew, in that moment, that hell was a place she did not want to be. It was properly named. Horrid. Bloody. Awful.
And she knew she was going back.
You do not leave family behind.
